Clandestine source tweets about home inspection by FBI agent and "7-8 police."

UPDATE, Feb. 20, 2013:The Tech Game was provided with a copy of the search warrant served on SuperDaE by the Australian Computer Crime Squad, alleging "unlwaful use of a computer." The warrant specifically names Microsoft, PayPal and eBay as injured parties, but SuperDaE also claims that Epic, Blizzard, Valve and Sony have joined in on the case due to case of unauthorized server access. "Yo, everyone at this point just wants a piece of me," he told The Tech Game, adding that old computers and a cell phone were confiscated under the warrant, and a freeze was placed on his bank accounts.

ORIGINAL STORY

Leaking information and materials regarding upcoming consoles is serious business. Just ask SuperDaE, the anonymous source whose parceling of information and attempted sale of his supposed Microsoft "Durango" development kit has purportedly earned him a visit from police and an FBI agent.

The mysteriously well-informed source posted on Twitter this morning that "police raided me," apparently based on a warrant that cited Microsoft, eBay, and Paypal. He later followed up to say that an FBI agent and seven to eight police were involved in the raid.

We've been unable to independently confirm SuperDaE's claims. The clandestine source says he was tweeting from an Apple Store and was therefore unable to post proof of the warrants that were sitting at home. While his location on Twitter is listed as North Carolina, the second attempted eBay sale of the Durango kit (Which went for over AUD$50,000) lists the location as Perth, Australia. That would raise questions about the involvement of the US FBI, but it would help explain how he was supposedly posting from an Apple Store during what was the middle of the night for the United States.

Console makers routinely place strict controls on the distribution of development kits, especially before a system's formal announcement and release. Developers are required to sign strict nondisclosure and no-resale agreements before receiving hardware, so the thought that Microsoft would get law enforcement involved isn't outside the realm of possibility. When Curt Schilling's 38 Studios was liquidated recently, Microsoft publicly intervened to try to prevent the resale of its Xbox 360 development kits. Then again, SuperDaE has said that his first attempt to sell the kit on eBay was blocked by Microsoft—without the need for a police raid.

Last June, supposed documents describing the next Xbox's features and hardware specs were taken down from the Web at the request of an IP law firm that frequently represents Microsoft.

150 Reader Comments

Shouldn't this be a civil case not a criminal case? Why is it law enforcement will do the bidding of corporations but not us individual citizens?

An ex-girlfriend of mine had her wallet stolen from her purse and thousands of dollars withdrawn from her accounts and credits cards maxed out and the police wouldn't do anything but give us a police report and told us to call the banks.

Theft of trade secrets (which the prototype dev kit undoubtedly was chock full of) is a criminal offense.

you think because you question authority you're somehow smarter than we are?

Throughout the history those who did question authority and established ideas were certainly smarter, but they were usually oppressed (some of them even silenced) by the likes of you. Take Galileo Galilei as an example.

jimisawesome wrote:

This right here. You don't want to live by the social contract move to the middle of nowhere with no one around and don't interact with anyone. The second a 2nd person is involved there is a social contract. Even "lawless" areas have a social contract of expected behaviors where breaking the "rules" causes negative impacts between yourself and that society.

What are you blabbering about?

Do you really believe that living in this society means that we have to blindly accept everything it throws at us "just because", that we can't have our reservations, doubts, disagreements?

Do you really believe that nobody should ever try to push for a change in this society if they feel something is amiss?

I really wonder what kind of tragical life circumstances create mindless people like you.

Sorry, but neither you nor the other "internet anarchist" in this discussion were "questioning authority". You were just spouting a whole bunch of bullshit meant to make yourselves feel smugly superior to everyone else.

Sorry, but neither you nor the other "internet anarchist" in this discussion were "questioning authority". You were just spouting a whole bunch of bullshit meant to make yourselves feel smugly superior to everyone else.

Right. There's willfully opting out of an unjust system, and there's avoiding appeals to rule of law, but saying "like, what IS law anyway, man?" doesn't make one look particularly insightful.

Could you please, through deductive reasoning, argue or explain why he did "bad things"? How do you qualify what he did as being "bad"?

Please... enlighten me. And try to limit your appeals to authority as those are logical fallacies.

Good Luck!

Trivial explanation: the developer agreed not to do something, then broke his word purely for personal enrichment. As it is a bad thing to break your word (all societies are based on this at some fundamental level, and most codify it into contract law), the developer's actions in this case are themselves bad.

Unless you're in senior politics. Or an executive at a large bank, or large company. Or a top man in the mafia, drug cartel, or related to someone important.. yes, if you're the man that should be protected from all those hooligans, then the police will come for you.

Bad stuff happens to you if you get caught. **Rich people can keep themselves out of trouble a bit easier (money to bribe people) than poor people, but the law is still applied the same.** Most people in the US gov are not corrupt, and cannot be blatantly bribed to disobey laws. Trying to bend them is quite popular (lobbying), but not downright ignoring.

** The law is absolutely NOT applied the same. If it were, they wouldn't be able to bribe their way out of it to begin with.

This right here. You don't want to live by the social contract move to the middle of nowhere with no one around and don't interact with anyone. The second a 2nd person is involved there is a social contract. Even "lawless" areas have a social contract of expected behaviors where breaking the "rules" causes negative impacts between yourself and that society.

What are you blabbering about?

Do you really believe that living in this society means that we have to blindly accept everything it throws at us "just because", that we can't have our reservations, doubts, disagreements?

Do you really believe that nobody should ever try to push for a change in this society if they feel something is amiss?

I really wonder what kind of tragical life circumstances create mindless people like you.

You really are one of those special kind of idiots aren't you? You want different laws lobby for them, take up arms and overthrow the current regime. But don't compare yourselves to Ghandi and MLK Jr. They knew full well what they where doing was breaking the law (codified social contract) and expected consequences for their actions. Hell, they wanted those consequences as part of their strategy to change the law. They where not writing on the internet how its like so totally unfair that you cant sell stolen property. This jackass tried to sell stolen property. Go march on the streets if you think its unjust that people are arrested for stealing others property just let me know where you are marching and what you drive so I can help show your cause by selling your car.

After rummaging through the down-voted comments it's amazing how many people are willing to play internet defense lawyer for SuperDaE despite having next to no knowledge of the law or of this actual situation outside of rumors and SuperDaE's own tweets.

The FBI would have to of had a reasonably solid legal case to get this far, and if you are going to dismiss that with a claim of corruption / conspiracy, you should have more to back it up than your own political bias and populist emotions, which do not overrule fact or reason.

Synitare wrote:

Rommel102 wrote:

BREAKING NEWS:

If you do bad things the police will come for you...

BREAKING NEWS:

Selling something is not inherently "bad."

You can put that to the test by renting a car and immediately selling it at a used car lot.

ZippyDSMlee wrote:

JumpNDesign wrote:

Its all about the NDA. They are just providing a 'work' station that developers can take home. In the end its still MS property.

So why do you have to pay for it then?

The same reason you have to pay for a rental? There is no law enforcing a change in ownership when you pay for something that overrules a contract or other business agreement.

igor.levicki wrote:

What are you blabbering about?

Do you really believe that living in this society means that we have to blindly accept everything it throws at us "just because", that we can't have our reservations, doubts, disagreements?

Do you really believe that nobody should ever try to push for a change in this society if they feel something is amiss?

I really wonder what kind of tragical life circumstances create mindless people like you.

Would you make this argument in court after committing murder/rape/theft? Would you call the jury mindless sheep? A world where laws are invalid when they inconvenience you is no utopia.

Meanwhile, there are drug rings, murders, rapes, etc...and we're organizing an expensive raid of several officers and an agent for some unreleased video game console. 'MERICA

Yeah! You know the other day local police arrested someone for burglary. Meanwhile I heard there was a rape in a city 500 miles south of here. Why are the cops wasting their time with some harmless burglary when there's more dangerous criminals on the streets?

Right, if only all rapists were stupid enough to try and sell the evidence of their crimes on the Internet the world would be a better place.

Selling trade secrets and selling stolen goods are both crimes. Doing it over the internet makes it an interstate (at the very least) crime. This was all explained numerous times throughout the comments.

If true it seems heavy-handed -- a couple police paying him a visit would have worked fine, I mean it's not like he was torrenting music or movies.

Except it sounds like he's a repeat offender. They tend to bring out bigger guns if you keep at it. Especially if you keep getting caught.

Still, I have doubts with his claims too. Honestly, I'd sooner believe it was a private investigator or something than an FBI agent in Perth for an eBay sale. Maybe a local plainclothes officer. It seems like a lot of people can't pick an FBI agent from any other cop when the cop isn't in uniform.

He wasn't under contract in the first place, so I don't understand why this is being brought up as a theoretical. Besides, to answer your question this was (AGAIN IF NOT A HOAX WHICH REMAINS LIKELY) a theft of physical and intellectual property.

MaxSan wrote:

Selling next-gen Xbox dev kit. Bitcoin user unaffected.

Most bizarrely naive comment since the stream of "Your honor, may I refer to 'the State' vs 'YOU'RE NOT MY DAD'" posts. This wasn't Silk Road, this was set up through eBay and advertised through Twitter.

He wasn't under contract in the first place, so I don't understand why this is being brought up as a theoretical. Besides, to answer your question this was (AGAIN IF NOT A HOAX WHICH REMAINS LIKELY) a theft of physical and intellectual property.

Either he was under contract when he received the unit from Microsoft, he stole it himself, or he received it from someone else who stole it. All of them are very real crimes.

Either he was under contract when he received the unit from Microsoft, he stole it himself, or he received it from someone else who stole it. All of them are very real crimes.

True! I just doubt that the former is the case (is there evidence to or claims otherwise?). You need an established, not shell company with vetting to receive these devices. They don't just give them to anyone with the money to buy one.

He wasn't under contract in the first place, so I don't understand why this is being brought up as a theoretical. Besides, to answer your question this was (AGAIN IF NOT A HOAX WHICH REMAINS LIKELY) a theft of physical and intellectual property.

MaxSan wrote:

Selling next-gen Xbox dev kit. Bitcoin user unaffected.

Most bizarrely naive comment since the stream of "Your honor, may I refer to 'the State' vs 'YOU'RE NOT MY DAD'" posts. This wasn't Silk Road, this was set up through eBay and advertised through Twitter.

How exactly do you know he wasn't under a contract?

Its really simple

Either he was under a contract and attempted to sell property he was not authorized to sell or he was attempting to sell property he didn't actually own and did not have the authorization to sell.

In either case the property was Microsoft's property and thus he was attempting to sell property HE DID NOT OWN.

You really are one of the dumbest people I have EVER had the displeasure of reading.

Just remember, folks, when it is YOUR property that is stolen, there won't be "7 or 8" agents assigned to the case. Nope, big corporations are the only "people" that are afforded that kind of service.

Can you tell us why the FBI was involved? The fact that they were should tell you something. The FBI does not get involved in simply theft cases.

Well Congress was pretty upset and wanted to know why the FBI involved itself in the Petraus "scandal". They had no idea any Generals were involved into they gained access to the account. The initial complaint did not warrant FBI involvement.

If the FBI hears the names "Microsoft, Apple, or Google" they will get involved just because it's "high profile".

Don't assume because they did get involve that the crime required their involvement.

This is the reason why the FBI was involved. I find it hilarious that you actually think the whole Petraus scandal is ANYTHING like this. this actually helps to clarify that you have no clue. you have no clue what THIS case is about and you have no clue what the whole Petraus scandal was about.

I'm willing to bet you are one of those who actually thinks the feds were involved in Aaron Swartz's arrest because of copyright infringement and not because the kid hacked into MIT's systems which made his case a federal case since he violated federal law.

Just remember, folks, when it is YOUR property that is stolen, there won't be "7 or 8" agents assigned to the case. Nope, big corporations are the only "people" that are afforded that kind of service.

Can you tell us why the FBI was involved? The fact that they were should tell you something. The FBI does not get involved in simple theft cases.

I'm pretty sure selling something you don't have for $50K can be called 'fraud'.

The problem with most of these comments is everyone is assuming this guy is telling the truth about owning a development kit and completely dismissing the possibility that some idiot actually paid him $50K for something he didn't actually own.

Just remember, folks, when it is YOUR property that is stolen, there won't be "7 or 8" agents assigned to the case. Nope, big corporations are the only "people" that are afforded that kind of service.

Can you tell us why the FBI was involved? The fact that they were should tell you something. The FBI does not get involved in simple theft cases.

I'm pretty sure selling something you don't have for $50K can be called 'fraud'.

The problem with most of these comments is everyone is assuming this guy is telling the truth about owning a development kit and completely dismissing the possibility that some idiot actually paid him $50K for something he didn't actually own.

Or the fact that most likely Ms did not GIVE him a dev kit but more likely LOANED him one. Since the FBI were there they were likely looking at him for possible theft of trade secrets charges.

Kyle Orland / Kyle is the Senior Gaming Editor at Ars Technica, specializing in video game hardware and software. He has journalism and computer science degrees from University of Maryland. He is based in the Washington, DC area.